Do CDs sound better than streaming music?
Generally yes. Without getting too technical, digital music on a CD is far less compressed than MP3-based streaming audio, which has to be reduced in size even further, losing a lot of musical detail, in order to allow the digital data to be transmitted over thin Bluetooth wireless frequencies to wireless headphones and speakers.
Only so-called “lossless” streaming audio, available from some premium streaming services, can match the fidelity of a CD. Of course, you’ll hear plenty of arguments from audiophiles that the warm sound of a record played on a well-tuned turntable through well-tuned amplifiers and well-tuned speakers or headphones beats anything else.
Aren’t there several CD formats? Can a boombox play them all?
Yes, there are several CD formats. But most boomboxes can play them all – regular music CDs you can buy in the store, books on CD, and recordable CD formats like CD-R and CD-RW that have been “burned” with MP3 music files from your PC. A CD system’s specifications will tell you which CD formats it can play, but in general, all CD players are universally compatible.
Do CDs in a boombox skip when you move?
That used to be the case. But even the simplest portable CD players now have digital buffers that store some of the CD audio digitally. So even if a CD skips because you move too abruptly, the buffer fills the gap so you don’t even notice.
You would have to shake a boombox vigorously to make a CD skip – but why would you do that?
